I have a strong feeling that the mark-to-market, it still wouldn't have been the right thing to do.

I worked for this company and left because they downsized all of Buisness Development, the president of the company suddenly quit, and contracts were not being won and big talk of downsizing was a common occurance.

I would guess that the before-majority tends to reflect a consensus opinion, the arguments in favor of which are probably more commonly encountered in everyday life. Most of the arguments and ideas that are new to the audience would then be coming from the anti-consensus side, so more weakly-decided people would break for the side bringing previously unconsidered information to the table.